ARTICLES

The very notion is deeply romantic. A location of perfect tension, where the weather is honest and the sounds are cyclical. The Beach is that point in space where time and energy laps onto a surface, reworking it; constructing and deconstructing; giving and taking away. No less romantic is the notion that a “beach” surrounds us all under the tiles, asphalt, and paving stones of the city, beneath the constructs of our society. That it is always there, ever present, pushing up against the...
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The city is a cosmic place. It is home, playground, office, and dreamland all in one. is the second time four Berlin institutions have collaborated in their contemporary art program. The project, initiated and funded by the city of Berlin, is part of the city’s pursuit of prestige events that draw attention to Berlin Art Week and its commercial epicenter, the abc art fair. Two years ago, Painting Forever! was thought banal and unexciting but successful enough (i.e. necessary) to repeat. Image...
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New York City and San Francisco guides too.
Berlin expresses its art scene in many different forms. Different spaces, missions, and structures. This is about the impact of non-profit spaces and the purpose they serve. Though market-driven galleries are growing in prominence, some non-profits have risen to great importance. KW, for example, started as a small artist run non-profit space and is now one of the more influential in the city. The following are some non-profits with varying...
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In a Marsden Hartley painting beats the dark heart of the twentieth century. The thin slice of globe-trotting work from 1913-1915 presaged some of the most ecstatic and iconic tropes to come.
In a Marsden Hartley painting is the synthetic seed of Pollock’s urgency and John’s cool, detached symbology. Both men seemed to filch from Hartley’s rainbow palette, alternately whipped into creamy pastels or shot through with matte, inky blacks.
The brief period straddling the outbreak of World War I...
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Matthew Morrocco’s “Berlin Series” depicts no-strings-attached encounters tied to the fabric of our most intimate human emotions. This tender photographic self-portrait series evokes the pleasure and pathos that can be embedded in online hook-ups. As a young New York artist studying in Berlin, Morrocco met older men and photographed them either alone or interacting with his nude body. He respectfully represents these men’s aged bodies and evident desires. Presenting his subjects’ faded, slack...
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The Neue Nationalgalerie’s provides an unprecedented opportunity to see thirty stunning oil paintings from the American Modernist’s Berlin years. These works have not been displayed together in a focused exhibition since the artist exhibited them himself in 1915. Commendably, the Neue Nationalgalerie recognized the need for an exhibition that brings together paintings from a period representing the pinnacle of Hartley’s abstractions and the dawning of his self-identity as an “American...
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Gallery Weekend offers an impressive lineup of some of the most successful and provocative artists represented by Berlin galleries. The exhibitions effectively target the international audience of curators and collectors who descend on the city for the three-day event. But the vibrancy of Berlin’s contemporary art scene is not concentrated solely in the Gallery Weekend’s official program. More than a commercial center for contemporary art, Berlin is also a vital site for its creation. And for...
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Whether you’re “poor but sexy” in Berlin, or “rich but sexy” in Hamburg[1], creativity brings people together, attracts tourists, and keeps investor money flowing into the real estate market. How do artists, cultural producers and activists deal with their complicity in the production and marketing of the city?
In the Berlin project space , concerned members of Berlin's independent art scene recently met with their Hamburg counterparts to sit down and compare stories. The meeting was hosted by...
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For about two decades now the qualifications “young,” “emerging,” and “new” have functioned as the ultimate buzzwords, inspiring a Pavlovian rustle of checkbooks amongst collectors “buying with their ears.” No wonder art fairs have latched onto the phenomenon by creating special sections dedicated to gallery start-ups. At Frieze it’s called Frame; Art Brussels has Young; Art Rotterdam’s got a New Art Section. And there is, of course, LISTE, the fair designed from the start to showcase the...
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I can’t say I didn’t see this coming: the end of year review. I approach this time of year with a mix of dread and depressed resignation with our current mediascape. My Facebook feed currently includes such reflective gems as “The 40 Most Influential Poms of 2013” and “35 Most Important Texts of 2013.” (Spoiler alert: they’re neither important nor deserving of the title “text.” Also, “Poms” is short for “Pomeranians,” in case you didn’t know).
For Americans like myself, it feels like Black...
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